


Color Crush

by tamerofdarkstars



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Post-Canon, back on my bullshit once again, brought to you by me, yep it's the color soulmate au that no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 20:43:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16145150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamerofdarkstars/pseuds/tamerofdarkstars
Summary: "Color was still pale, washed out and faded, but her eyes were there and they were bright and still crinkled around the edges and Rhys felt like he was crawling right out of his skin.Oh, this was bad. This was very bad."





	Color Crush

**Author's Note:**

> so i'm writing something longer for these two right now but all that really means is i keep getting distracted by little fluff one shots so that's fun
> 
> in other news, i am an absolute sucker for soulmate aus and i still love the entire tftbl gang with all my heart and soul

They’d been driving for just under a week and Rhys was convinced that they were going in circles. No way was Pandora this gigantic. And absolutely no way did it have the exact same outcropping of stupid gray desert rocks every fifty feet.

Or maybe he was just losing his mind. It was fifty-fifty at this point. The anger and hurt and frustration and exhilaration he’d felt on Helios, standing there in the hallway with Vaughn and Yvette as they hatched their scheme, felt tiny and far away.

Why the hell had he thought he could do this? Steal a Vault Key? Rip off one of the most far-reaching companies this side of the galaxy? Rhys was good at business, sure, but this was a whole other level. He’d scraped and sacrificed to climb the ladder, telling himself that everything he was doing was worth it, telling himself that he’d change it when he got to the top. He’d make it better. He told him that every time he shook a hand or greased a palm or plastered on a smile when all he wanted to do was scream.

It would be worth it because he, Rhys, was good at his fucking job and he was going to take Hyperion into the future.

But then he’d been passed up, and in a moment of blind fury, he’d dragged his best friend down with him and gotten them into the biggest mess of their entire lives.

Now they were driving across the desert with three women who had all at one point expressed a desire to shoot them both in the face, Vaughn was paralyzed so stiff Rhys wasn’t even sure if he was still breathing, the creepy electric ghost of his former idol was listening to his every thought and destroying his perceptions of everything he’d thought he’d known about Handsome Jack, _and,_ to top it all off, Rhys had lost his shoe and his toes were freezing.

He sighed, staring out the windshield, one hand on the wheel. He could hear Sasha murmuring under her breath, too quiet to make out, and Athena responding, their conversation almost musical from all the way in the back.

The thing was that Rhys sort of liked Fiona and Sasha. Jury was out on Athena, but she hadn’t shot him while he slept yet, so that was a point in her favor.

Sasha reminded him of what he’d always imagined having a sibling would be like – she gave him tons of shit and seemed to find particular entertainment in embarrassing the hell out of him every chance she got. He’d tripped over his words and put his foot in his mouth more times around Sasha already than he had pretty much all of university, which was truly saying something, but at the end of the day, Rhys was pretty sure he’d still follow her off the edge of a cliff if she asked him nicely.

Or shoved him.

One of the two.

And then there was Fiona. Rhys shifted in the seat, steering the Caravan around a rock, ignoring the curious Skag that poked its head out of its little hole as they rumbled by.

Fiona was bewildering and incredible and Rhys had no idea what to do with her. He’d catch himself watching her, his eyes snagging on the curve of her neck or the restless tapping of a gray-painted fingernail against the tabletop, and force himself to look away. She unsettled him, the way she didn’t seem to be impressed with a single piece of him. Nothing he did seemed to make her dislike him any less. And yeah, sure, Rhys got that he stood for pretty much everything she’d hated since childhood, but… well, he liked her. And he wanted her to like him.

Fiona was smart and funny and brave and kind of a dork and Rhys found himself gravitating towards her, hovering on the outskirts of her orbit. He wanted her to include him in her jokes – wanted to make jokes that made her laugh rather than just roll her eyes.

He wanted to be her friend. And he was starting to realize that maybe he had no idea how to go about actually making friends. Rhys had known Vaughn for nearly all his life, and Yvette was the kind of person that decided you were friends, rather than the other way around. And yeah, sure, he was good with people – you sort of had to be, in his position – but he wasn’t good at being _honest_ with people. Hyperion’s number one lesson was Trust No One. Acquaintances were good – people to hit the bar with, to sit with at lunch, to finger-gun salute in the hallways – but actual friends were rare and precious things.

Besides. Fiona’d already made it pretty clear she wasn’t his biggest fan. So maybe it was a lost cause and he should just focus on getting the hell off this planet before he got himself killed.

Something thumped down on the dashboard, jerking Rhys out of his reverie, and he grabbed the wheel with both hands, heart flying into his throat.

For a split second, he thought it was Jack, and terror froze his breath solid in his lungs as he looked around for the familiar faded silhouette.

But no, it was Fiona, leaning against the dashboard with her arms folded across her chest, as though he’d summoned her to the front of the Caravan just by thinking about her.

He blinked at her, then looked down at the object she’d thrown at him.

He bent down and picked up his shoe.

For a moment, he just stared at it. Then, Rhys looked up at Fiona.

And she smiled at him. A tiny little smile, the corner of her mouth curving up and her eyes crinkling at the corners and Rhys felt his stomach twist, sudden and sharp and fluttering and--

There it was.

Something bleeding into her hair. A streak of something, something that stood out against the gray smudges on the walls and floor, the gray of the sky flitting past the windows, the gray rocks hulking against the gray sand.

Rhys stared at her, clutching the shoe to his chest. He smiled back, helpless to stop it, and Fiona’s smile grew wider.

“Your sock looked sad,” she informed him, pushing off the dashboard.

“It was,” Rhys said. It the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. Color was still pale, washed out and faded, but her eyes were there and they were bright and still crinkled around the edges and Rhys felt like he was crawling right out of his skin.

Oh, this was bad. This was very bad. Rhys didn’t just like Fiona. He _liked_ Fiona.

Rhys could barely breathe. He bent down, shoving his shoe back on his foot, and returned his attention to the road, gripping the wheel with both hands.

Could she see them too? Was he alone? All that poetry crap about love bringing color into the world was all well and good when he was reading it on the EchoNet in the middle of the night, but this not-knowing was so so much worse than he’d ever thought it could be.

Yeah, he’d dated a bit – short-lived little flings as he held his breath, waiting for the color that never came. If he’d known that it would be like this...

He flexed his fingers on the wheel and looked up into the sky.

The stars glittered against the grayness of the sky as it faded from the pale gray to a deeper color, something darker and richer. Rhys gaped up at it, at Helios standing stark against that contrast.

The Caravan drifted.

“Rhys!”

He flinched and yanked the wheel. The Caravan turned sharply, narrowly avoiding a rock formation, and behind him, Rhys heard something large thump to the ground.

“Are you out of your mind?” Athena snapped. “Watch where you’re going!”

“Sorry!” Rhys said, wincing. “Sorry, sorry – is everyone ok?”

“Vaughn’s on the floor,” Sasha reported. There was some shuffling and another thump. “It’s alright, we put him back.”

“Does he look like he’s screaming in agony?” Fiona asked and there was a long pause.

“Nah,” Sasha said finally. “That’s how his frozen face has always looked.”

Rhys gripped the wheel, feeling like he might be losing his mind after all. “Does... maybe someone else want to drive? Please?”

-

Of course, no one could know about this. All evidence pointed towards Fiona barely tolerating him, much less actually liking him. Color wasn’t a sign of some stupid immovable destiny – it was… a crush. On his end. That was it.

So he had a bit of a thing for her. Whatever. He could deal with this. It wasn’t the end of the world or anything.

So, of course, Rhys gave himself away almost immediately after setting foot into the jungle.

But in his defense, the jungle was _incredible_. There was color everywhere, and he felt a little bad for the others, only seeing this in washes of gray. He’d done a quick furtive search with his Eye and learned the names for the colors – that one was blue and this was purple, or violet, or maybe blue-violet. Whatever it was, it was damned gorgeous and he couldn’t stop staring.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

He barely looked at Sasha, who had somehow materialized at his elbow. She was reaching out, fingers brushing the edges of bright red flower petals, and Rhys caught her wrist before he realized he was moving.

“Don’t touch the red ones, they sting.”

Sasha went perfectly still, looking first from the flower then to Rhys’ fingers around her wrist, then finally, to Rhys’ face.

Rhys raised an eyebrow at her. “What?”

He dropped her wrist, returning to study the interesting-looking purple flower he’d seen sprouting up in the shadow of the lab building.

In the back of his brain, a voice that wasn’t his groaned, and a pulse of irritation that wasn’t his flooded through him.

_Oh my god, Princess, seriously, if you look at another flower, I’m going to throw us both off the roof of this garbage excuse for a research lab._

Rhys winced, forcing himself to ignore Jack’s voice. He was focusing so hard that he barely heard Sasha’s question.

“Rhys… can you see color?”

The question sank in and Rhys made a strangled noise, feeling air whistle painfully as though punched out of his lungs. “Wh-what? Of course not, don’t be—”

Sasha took another step closer. “You can! You said that flower was _red_. You stopped me from touching it. Don’t you dare lie to me.”

Rhys scowled at her, heart rabbiting against his sternum. “Don’t…! Geez, you’re so _loud_. Why are you so loud? You’re so small.”

Sasha punched him in the shoulder and he yelped, reaching up to rub at his arm. “That is going to _bruise_ , Sasha, what the hell?”

“Admit it!”

“Fine!” Rhys snapped, looking around for the others. He lowered his voice. “Yes, I can see it. Are you happy?”

“Is it Vaughn?”

That ground Rhys’ brain to a screeching halt and he gaped at her for several long seconds, attempting to process the sheer wrongness of that sentence. “Uh, no. I love Vaughn but it did not, in fact, take me twenty years to suddenly develop a color crush on my best friend. Thanks for that.”

Sasha grinned triumphantly. “Aha! So it’s a new development.”

 _Shit_. Rhys sighed, reaching up and rubbing at his temple. “I think I hate you.”

“Aw, come oooooon, you can tell me, I can keep a secret.” The playful grin faded a bit from her face and she suddenly looked troubled, sucking her lower lip between her teeth. “Hey, uh… it’s not, not me, is it?”

Rhys’ head snapped up so fast he nearly cricked his neck. “What? No. No, uh, no. Not that you’re not-- you know.” He gestured sort of helplessly at her. “But no. Sorry?”

Sasha sighed, shoulders slumping. “Oh, good. I’d have felt kind of bad shooting you down.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you would have gotten over it,” Rhys mumbled. The air was sticky with humidity, and he could feel a bead of sweat slowly tracing its way down the back of his neck and between his shoulder blades. “Listen, not that this isn’t the most exciting and totally not painful conversation of my life, but—”

“Hey!”

Sasha and Rhys turned in unison to find Fiona standing there, looking between them uncertainly, her hands on her hips. “Athena found the way in...” she said, frowning slightly. “What are you two doing over here?”

“Nothing!” Rhys yelped and Sasha looked from Rhys to Fiona and then back again.

“Nothing, Fi,” she said slowly and Rhys could hear the question in her voice. He stared at her, wide-eyed, trying desperately to communicate via some form of mental telepathy with her to keep her mouth shut. “Just checking out the plants.”

Fiona watched them both for another long moment. “Okay...” she said finally, and turned away. “Oh, don’t touch those ones with the weird shaped leaves.” She pointed at the red plant Rhys had stopped Sasha from grabbing. “They sting.”

Sasha glanced at the plant. “Thanks for the heads up.”

Fiona headed back up the path. The moment she was out of earshot, Sasha turned on Rhys.

He flinched immediately, flinging his hands up over his head. “Please don’t hit me.”

But she was quiet and after a few moments, Rhys lowered his hands. Sasha was looking at him strangely, something quizzical on her face. Finally, she sighed and shook her head. “Listen. I won’t say anything for now, ok?”

Rhys felt his knees go weak with relief. “Oh. That’s… totally what I expected you to say?”

Sasha crossed her arms. “But. If you mess with my sister, I will make you sorry you’ve ever been born, got it?”

Rhys swallowed. “Uh, yeah. Got it. Look, you’ve got nothing to worry about, alright, she barely tolerates being in the same room with me. Like I’m gonna tell her that I sort of… uh, that I… you know. She’d shoot me in the head faster than I could get the words out.”

Sasha opened her mouth, paused, then closed it. “Just keep your hands to yourself and we’ll all be fine.”

She brushed past him, heading in the same direction as Fiona, when she stopped again. She turned around to face him again, something clearly at war in her expression.

“Listen,” she said, then huffed an irritated sigh. Her eyes skidded away from Rhys’ face, then back up to look him dead in the eye. “The flowers with the bright green spots will try to bite you if you get too close.”

Rhys raised an eyebrow in surprise, but Sasha was already halfway up the path before he could even properly process her words.

Sasha could see color too. A memory flashed into his brain, unprompted, of looking up through a glass window and seeing Sasha arguing with August, tension screaming in every line of their bodies, and Rhys wondered how he missed it before.

Jack appeared in front of his eyes, almost nose to nose with him, completely without warning and Rhys jumped violently, scrambling several steps backwards.

“Will you,” he hissed, grasping at his chest to try and calm his racing heart, “please stop doing that.”

Jack snorted, his gleeful expression distorted across his electric-blue face. “And miss the startled and amazed expression on your face every time I deign to grace you with my presence? Yeah, don’t think so, kiddo.”

“Go away,” Rhys snapped, stepping around him and starting up the path.

Jack scoffed. “Nah, this is just getting good! Here I thought this’d be a story of political intrigue, you know? Real corporate politics type stuff. You help me get back my rightful throne and maybe we kill some people along the way, all that jazz. But you, my delightful little brain buddy, you’ve gone and added a little romance angle, haven’t you?”

Rhys stopped in the middle of the pathway. Slowly, he turned around.

“Leave the girls out of this, Jack,” Rhys said quietly and Jack laughed, completely unfazed.

“Relax, sweetcheeks, I’m not gonna do a thing. Besides, you got excellent taste. Hat Chick is _smokin’_ hot. Like, wowza. Which, you know, good for you, and lucky for me. Since I’m in your body, if you get with her, _I_ get with her. Then we _both_ win!”

Rhys glared at him before spinning on his heel and stalking away.

“Aw, come on! What’d I say? Huh? Is it because I called her Hat Chick? Dude, it’s a nickname! Because she’s wearing a hat! Get it?”

Rhys ignored him, catching up to the others in front of the massive set of double doors. Gortys purred up to bump gently into his ankles, peering up at him with her massive eyes. “Hi, Rhys! We’ve been waiting for you! Why do you look all sweaty?”

Rhys rolled his shoulders back uncomfortably, realizing suddenly that he was in fact incredibly sweaty. Gross. He really wanted a shower. “It’s hot out here, Gortys.”

“Your face is _really_ flushed. Are you sick? Do you need a hug?”

“Actually, a hug would be—” Rhys started but Athena interrupted him.

“Hurrah, we’re all fine. Now can we please get these doors open and go inside already?” She fixed him with that unnerving stare and Rhys blinked, confused for a split second before he realized what she wanted.

“Oh. Uh, yeah, sorry.” He headed for the doors, activating his EchoEye and opening the interface. He caught a glimpse of Fiona out of the corner of his eye, still studying him with that same strange look on her face, but when he chanced a quick glance at her, she was looking down and away, studying the dirt beneath her boots.

He examined the lock for a moment and just like that he could see into it, was racing along the twists and turns of the program, spilling the code down the screen hovering above his hand and Rhys felt the anxiety and stress and terror melt away into nothing. Several moments passed as he navigated through Atlas’ ancient security measures, picking them to pieces, and then with a soft clicking noise, the mechanism unlatched and the light above the door went from red to green.

Rhys’ eyes flicked to it. “Bingo.”

He dropped his arm and let the light in his Eye fade out and die. “Ladies and robots first,” he said, stepping aside and gesturing at the door.

Sasha rolled her eyes at him. “Sure, pretend to be all gentlemanly. It has nothing to do with being first one into the spooky abandoned research lab.” She flashed a grin at him as she followed Athena through the door.

Rhys snorted. “Quit announcing my secret plans to the entire group, Sasha, it’s not healthy for my ego.”

Sasha’s laughter floated back as Fiona fell into step beside him. Rhys caught that strange look vanishing off her face again as she bumped their shoulders together, almost companionably.

“That’s not bad work, with the whole weird eye-hand hack thing.”

Rhys grinned. “Ah yes, my weird eye-hand hack thing. I appreciate you only calling it by its technical name.”

“Oh, shut up.” But Fiona was smiling too, and they fell silent, walking down the corridor. Rhys chewed his lip, trying to think of something to say to keep the conversation going, but then they were through the door and into a big open room. There was a computer against one wall and a bowl of fresh fruit sitting on a table. Athena was peering at a coffee machine with an almost manic look in her eyes, prodding at the buttons, and Loader Bot tromped right to the couch to deposit Vaughn onto the cushions.

Rhys winced, the guilt sharp and acrid in the back of his throat, when a hand touched his shoulder.

“He’ll be fine, Rhys,” Fiona said quietly and Rhys sighed.

“I hope so,” he mumbled. “This whole thing is my fault in the first place. If he… if he’s not...”

“Hey.” Fiona squeezed his shoulder and he looked down at her, not wanting to meet her eyes, not wanting her to see him slowly losing his mind. “Rhys. He’ll be fine. We’ll figure out how to get him back to normal and you know what, I bet he won’t even be mad.”

The thought made Rhys smile, just a bit, and he said, “I bet he’ll be a tiny bit mad.”

“Well, alright, maybe. But you two are freakishly codependent. I bet he won’t be mad for long.”

Rhys laughed softly, shaking his head. “Hey, thanks, Fiona. That, uh, actually made me feel a little better.”

Fiona released his shoulder, letting her arm drop, and they stood there for a second, awkwardly, just sort of looking at each other. Rhys cleared his throat, trying not to notice just how bright she stood out compared to everything around her, when Sasha called his name from the other side of the room.

“Rhys! Come do your thing on this computer.”

Computer. Computers were good. Computers, Rhys knew how to deal with. Computers and code and nice safe lines of data.

He shrugged at Fiona, smiling apologetically and crossed the room to examine the bank of screens with Sasha. He thought he heard Fiona make a soft noise behind him but when he turned around to look, she was already walking over to where Athena was seconds away from smashing the coffee maker into pieces.

-

Honestly, part of what kept him going in the months after Helios fell, was the color didn’t disappear.

It faded, a bit, with every day that went by that he didn’t hear from her, but it never vanished, and Rhys went about building Atlas back up with a single-minded determination to do it right, knowing even that if Fiona was furious with him and never wanted to speak to him again, that at least she was alright.

He hired an executive board – a few people who trickled in from where they’d miraculously survived the Helios crash, a few people from other companies who came over to see what this New Atlas thing was all about – and before he knew it, he actually had something that he thought might do alright for itself.

Did it heal the ache that cracked his heart every time he thought of Vaughn, who he’d almost definitely gotten killed, or Yvette, who’d betrayed him and died on Helios, or Gortys, who’d been torn to pieces and scattered to the wind? Or Fiona and Sasha, neither of whom were speaking to him or had even thought to let him know if they were alive?

No, but pouring all his energy into Atlas was leaving him too exhausted to remember the nightmares, so sure, let’s call that a healthy coping mechanism.

Then, two months after he’d torn his own prosthetics out and crushed Jack to dust in his fist, he received a message over EchoNet telling him to meet out in the desert.

Rhys sat in his office well after everyone else had left, his mug of coffee cold and sludgy where it sat, forgotten, next to his keyboard, and stared at the message floating above his hand.

It was signed with a single letter – F – and the color surged in the world around him as Rhys’ heart skipped a beat.

Of course it had to be a trap, because what in his life had ever gone smoothly, but like hell was Rhys going to toss away the chance that this might actually be the real thing.

So no, he wasn’t exactly surprised when he ended up being dragged semi-conscious through the desert, but at least he’d tried, right?

The Stranger dragged him into a makeshift campsite and there she was – Fiona, drenched in color and scowling at him, arms wrenched and bound behind her back, and Rhys was so damn happy to see her he could have cried.

“You no good lying Hyperion bastard!” Fiona snapped, anger creased in every line on her face. Apparently, she wasn’t happy to see him, if her expression was anything to go by, and Rhys felt disappointment, hurt, and anger slice through him in quick succession.

“Better than being a cheating Pandoran con artist,” he snapped back, hurt boiling over into irritation, and Fiona’s scowl deepened.

The Stranger dropped him unceremoniously in the dirt and Rhys bit back a noise as the restraints bit into his wrists.

Fiona was alive. She also clearly hated him.

That was fine.

Well no, that sucked a lot, actually, and there was this weird persistent ache in the middle of his chest that wasn’t going away, but she was alive, so you know what, Rhys was going to get over it. Besides, he deserved it. He’d gotten people he loved killed, and he’d nearly gotten people Fiona loved killed as well, because his own stubborn pride had insisted he could control the murderous psychopathic AI that had taken up residence in his brain.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, getting himself back under control as he carefully maneuvered himself into a sitting position.

He missed Vaughn so much it felt like a hole in his gut. He wanted to sit down with Vaughn and talk out his feelings. Vaughn would have listened. He would have called him an idiot, but he would have listened, and then he would have given him a totally manly bro hug and Rhys would have felt worlds better.

Instead, Vaughn was probably dead and Rhys was alone on a strange planet achieving a dream without him.

And that sucked.

“Tell me what happened,” the Stranger rumbled and Rhys almost laughed.

“You want to know what happened?” he asked dully, staring down at the toes of his shoes, scuffed from being dragged down the road. “Fine.”

If they wanted to know the whole story, then he’d tell it. Every single detail. The idea of talking about Jack made him want to scream, to run to a mirror and stare at his implant and pray to everything he could think of that he didn’t see electric blue staring back at him.

“It started with… a promotion. Kind of.”

-

“So I was standing there with a choice. Trust Fiona, who I’d just met and who didn’t seem to have any sort of plan at all, or trust Jack, who was actually inside my brain. Or maybe not. At that point, I was still terrified I was losing my mind.”

They trudged down the path and Rhys kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing to look at either Fiona or the Stranger as he talked, voice getting hoarse.

“So?” the Stranger prodded and it was Fiona who picked up the narrative.

“He told me that if I had any kind of plan, I’d better do it fast,” she said quietly, and when Rhys forced himself to look at her, he saw to his surprise that she was looking back at him. Her expression had softened from when he’d first been dragged into the camp, but when Rhys raised his eyebrows hopefully, she turned away, frowning down at her shoes.

Rhys trudged along silently, listening to Fiona explain how they’d gotten away with Gortys, and wondered if the Stranger was going to kill them. He wondered if Atlas was alright without him. If his executive staff was wondering where the hell he was.

He dreaded getting the story up to Helios. The jungle was going to be bad enough, but he wasn’t sure he could actually explain those last few moments facing Jack without throwing up.

-

“So Fiona flirts blatantly with Scooter and charms him into putting together a rocket--”

“Hey!”

“Tell me that’s not what happened!”

“… Alright, so that’s pretty much what happened. But Scooter introduced us to Janey, and I realized that she was Athena’s girlfriend...”

-

“Rhys kept the security off of me, but of course, this tour group shows up at the last minute, so there I am, walking through this Handsome Jack shrine making up pretty much everything about it...”

“Actually, you did pretty good. Buttstallion really does crap weapons.”

“Wait, are you serious? I thought I made that up.”

“Oh, no. It’s, uh, actually kind of creepy.”

-

“It was Yvette. She caught up to us in the detention level.”

“… Rhys—”

“I don’t want to talk about it. She is… she _was_ one of my best friends.”

-

“The ships blast off, and the entire place is shaking and stuff is on fire, and there are these big ugly terrifying Jack faces on the screens and these escape pods...”

-

“So Helios fell,” Rhys said hoarsely, throat raw. “And somehow I didn’t get skewered by debris, or crack my head open, or anything. So there’s debris everywhere and Jack--”

He cut off, unable to form the words for a minute. They’d stopped walking, Fiona looking at him with horrified concern, the Stranger with his expressionless mask.

Rhys ignored them, ignored everything that wasn’t the story he was forcing out, sentence by sentence.

“Jack is still there. There’s this fire everywhere, and everything is just bright red and burning, and there’s Jack, standing there with his stupid blue electricity, and he’s laughing at me. He still thinks he’s won.”

Rhys swallowed.

“So I ripped out my eye.”

Fiona made a soft noise. He ignored her.

“I was already missing an arm, so I figured, what was an eye? It was the only way… the only thing I could think of.” He crossed his arms over his chest, taking comfort in the silver sheen of his new prosthetic. “I tore my eye out of the circuit and Jack started freaking out immediately. He tried to talk me out of it one last time – but I crushed him. I crushed it into pieces and broke it and he disappeared mid-sentence.”

There was a beat of silence. Rhys tried for a smile, but could feel how flat it was, how pathetic. “And then I collapsed.”

Fiona made an aborted movement, like she’d wanted to take a step towards him, but in the end she just stood, arms folded, lips turned down at the corners.

There was an awkward silence.

“Maybe we had better stop for a moment,” the Stranger said.

-

Rhys couldn’t stop staring at Vaughn and it was only partially because of his sick abs being out on display for the world to see. He was alive and Rhys wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or hug him or cry or possibly a combination of the three.

He was sitting outside, back against a piece of wreckage, watching the Children of Helios hum around the camp like bumblebees, occasionally bumping into each other, but looking bright and alive and most importantly, purposeful. He even recognized a few people –a woman from Human Resources was hefting buckets of water with a guy that Rhys was pretty sure had once pitched a fit because someone had messed with his color-coded filing system.

He closed his eyes, feeling the sun on his face. What a weird couple of days.

“Hey.” He opened his eyes. Fiona smiled, a bit hesitant. “Can, uh, I sit?”

Rhys scooted over a bit, making space, and patted the sand next to him.

“Not tired of the desert yet?” he asked as Fiona sank down beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed.

“Nah,” she shrugged, squinting out at the busy camp. She reached up and shaded her eyes with her hand, and Rhys watched the shadow slant off her cheeks, and looked down and away.

They were silent for a moment, just watching the camp churn around them.

“Fiona,” Rhys began, looking down at his knees. “Listen. About everything that happened...”

“I’m sorry.” He blinked, confused, and look sideways at Fiona. She shrugged one shoulder, lips twisted in a wry little expression. “I wanted to beat you there. So. Sorry.”

Rhys snorted. “What do you even have to apologize for? Not like you let a psychotic murder douche ride shotgun in your brain.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like that was your fault.” Fiona stretched her legs out, knocking the toes of her shoes together.

Rhys watched her for a moment. His legs were longer than hers, and he knocked his knee sideways so it bumped her calf. She snorted and kicked him back, gently. He knocked his knee against her leg again and soon they were scuffling like children, a burst of nervous adrenaline that was over as quickly as it had started.

Their snickers faded, leaving behind a comfortable silence.

“I’m sorry too,” Rhys said quietly. “I’m really glad you’re alright. After all that.”

“Me too.” Fiona let her head fall back against the wreckage, tilting it so she was squinting at him through the sunlight. She smiled, that same tiny little smile that she’d given him way back in the Caravan when she’d returned his shoe, and Rhys realized as the world sharpened around him that he didn’t just sort of like this girl. Somewhere along the way, he’d fallen for her, and he’d fallen for her hard.

Fiona raised an eyebrow at him and he realized he was staring, a dopey smile on his face, and he looked away quickly, clearing his throat. He could feel himself blushing – or maybe burning, who could really tell anymore – and picked at a loose thread on his pant leg.

“Friends?” he asked, voice squeaking, because just because he was having an emotional crisis didn’t mean that he didn’t first and foremost want this girl in his life in whatever capacity she chose.

“Friends,” Fiona said firmly.

Rhys closed his eyes again against the sun, feeling the itch of nervous adrenaline pricking at his skin, but too warm and content to care. He could worry about his stupid emotions later. He could think about what it might be like to hold out his hand and have Fiona take it, have her curl their fingers together and go up on her toes to tug him down into a kiss--

Actually, maybe he shouldn’t think about what he could think about later right now. Kind of defeated the whole purpose.

“Rhys! Fi!”

He opened his eyes again as Sasha came jogging towards them, grinning. She stopped, hands on her hips. “Come on, you two. Let’s go. We’ve got an actual plan and I almost think it might not get us all killed.”

Rhys snorted. “Well, with that rousing vote of confidence, why not?”

He stuck up a hand and Sasha rolled her eyes, catching him by the wrist and yanking him to his feet. He stumbled, nearly crashing into her, and she shoved him away with a laugh.

Fiona picked herself up, looking between the two of them. Rhys raised an eyebrow at her and she looked away. Whatever comfortable mood had settled between them was gone.

-

There was a stitch in his side but he didn’t care, because Fiona was half a step ahead of him and the Vault was there, wide open and spilling out an eerie purple light.

Rhys stumbled to a stop, bending over and clutching at his side. “Alright… alright… you’re fast,” he wheezed and Fiona stopped, hands on her knees as she breathed deeply.

“Screw… you...” she rasped.

They caught their breath at the base of the Vault door, staring up at the looming columns.

“Hey.”

Rhys looked at Fiona, who had crossed her arms and planted her feet, fixing a scowl on her face. She suddenly looked nervous and irritated and a little pissed off.

“What?” he asked, confused, and Fiona hunched her shoulders.

“Just… stay away from my sister.” Rhys stared at her and she hurried on, grinding the sentence out like the words tasted bad on her tongue. “And don’t tell me I’m wrong, ok, because I’m pretty much an expert in reading people.”

“Uh,” Rhys began, but Fiona interrupted him.

“I know you can see color.”

Rhys froze, heart leaping into his throat. For a wild moment, they faced each other down, feet from the Vault.

Finally, Fiona dropped her arms to her sides, sighing. “Listen. I know you see color, and I know you’ve seen it for like, the entire time we were out there, and I know you see it for Sasha. You’re not subtle. So. Just… stay away from her.”

“I… don’t even know where to start with this,” Rhys said. Maybe he was having a very weird and very lucid dream? “There’s so many things wrong with what you just said.”

Fiona frowned. “So you’re telling me that you don’t see color?”

Rhys winced. “Uh, no. You got that part right.” The admission lifted something out of his chest, and Rhys looked back at the Vault, at the beckoning of adventure that waited inside, and then back at Fiona.

Thinking about it, there was no one else he could imagine taking those first steps into the Vault with. How could Fiona have not realized that? They were a team, after all.

He shook his head. “Seriously, you don’t have to worry about it.”

Fiona looked unimpressed, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, really? And why is that?”

“Because I’m interested in someone else.”

The words were out before he could stop them, and he waited, breathless, anticipation and nerves freezing him in place.

Fiona was looking at him like she wasn’t sure what she was seeing, a calculating look on her face. Then, her eyes widened a fraction.

Rhys looked around. “What? Is something there? Is something on me? Is it a bug? What?” He stepped sharply to the side, dragging his hands down his front, looking around for whatever it was that Fiona had seen.

But Fiona was silent, her eyes big and round and surprised, and she was still staring at him, and it was starting to freak him out.

“Fiona?”

“Sorry, it’s… it’s nothing.”

Now that sounded fake as all get out, but Rhys let it go, guiltily relieved that the conversation had moved away from his seeing color and his not-crush on Sasha before they’d gotten into any details on who exactly he’d gone and fallen in love with.

“Alright,” he said, and on a whim stuck out his hand. “Shall we?” Fiona looked at his hand, then at him, and he rolled his eyes. “It’s not going to bite you, Fiona, sheesh.”

Fiona opened her mouth, then shut it again, setting her jaw and reaching out to take his hand.

He squeezed it in what he hoped was a reassuring manner and together they stepped through the light and into a wide glowing chamber.

There were steps, made of dark stone, floating impossibly up to a platform on which sat a massive treasure chest. Great purple crystals were scattered around the darkness, glowing softly, and the walls were laced with bright blue bands of light.

“Wow,” Rhys breathed.

“Yeah,” Fiona said, just as quietly. The atmosphere felt hushed, expectant, waiting for them to make the first move.

Rhys squeezed Fiona’s hand gently.

“What color is it?” Fiona whispered and Rhys looked sideways at her.

“Purple,” he said. “It’s… like a dark violet. Blue and magenta. There’s blue in the lines in the steps and the treasure chest has got this purple-pink light glowing out of it.”

Fiona was quiet for a long moment. Then, apparently steeling herself, she tipped her head up and looked at him.

“What color,” she said quietly, “is your eye?”

He blinked. “Uh, the real one or the fake one?”

“The EchoEye.”

“Gold. Well, now it’s gold.”

“It wasn’t always gold?”

“It used to be blue.”

Fiona reached up and poked his cheek, directly under his implant. Rhys tried not to move, praying she didn’t decide to jab him in the eye.

Then, Fiona’s finger trailed down his face and he shivered, a bolt of adrenaline surging through his blood.

It stopped on the side of his neck, Fiona’s fingers hot against his skin. Rhys’ heart slammed against his rib cage.

“Fiona?” he squeaked. “You’re, uh, not going to strangle me and take the treasure and run, or anything, are you?”

Fiona ignored him. “So this,” she said, voice too loud, eyes fixed desperately on Rhys’ collarbone, “this tattoo would be… blue.”

“Yeah,” Rhys said without thinking. Then his mind caught up with her words and he looked down at her, at the soft light playing across her face, at the tension in her jaw, and he finally understood what she was saying. “Wait.”

Fiona stiffened.

“Can you see...” Rhys started, then stopped. “Wait, when did you…?”

“I’ll tell you if you tell me who the someone else is,” Fiona countered.

Neither moved, locked there at the base of the stairs like they were about to dance, hand in hand with Fiona’s other hand resting on Rhys’ shoulder.

Rhys swallowed. “How come I gotta go first?”

Fiona scowled, cheeks glowing dully. “Because I said so. And because you let a mass murderer ride around in your head. So you owe me.”

“Ah, damn,” Rhys sighed, “that’s gonna be a thing, isn’t it? Every time you try to talk me into something, you’re gonna bring this up, aren’t you?”

Fiona tried to bite back her smile, but failed. “I mean, probably not?”

Rhys snorted. “I look forward to having that thrown in my face for the rest of my life.” He studied her for a moment. “Fiona… I mean, come on. Can’t we just go open the treasure chest and be rich beyond our wildest dreams and not taint this memory with you shooting me down?”

Fiona frowned. “Rhys, what about this makes you think I’m going to shoot you down?”

That threw Rhys for a loop and he paused. “Wait,” he began, just as Fiona blinked.

“Wait--” she chorused with him, then stopped.

They laughed, awkwardly, and Rhys figured, screw it. What was she going to do, punch him in the face again?

“Fiona,” he said quietly, “listen.”

She looked up at him, waiting, and everything he wanted to say fizzled and died in his brain. He swallowed, throat dry. “Uh.”

“Oh, hell,” Fiona said and tugged him down, dropping his hand so she could curl both arms around his neck, and kissed him, soft and warm and firm.

For an instant, Rhys was convinced he was dreaming. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close, and kissed her back, kissed her with every ounce of feeling he’d been trying to ignore.

Fiona broke away with a gasp, eyes big and round, staring up at him.

“I started to see color after you gave me back my shoe,” Rhys said in a rush, the words spilling out of him. His lips were still tingling, his entire body warm from head to toe. He could barely hear himself speak over the blood thumping in his ears. “Sasha called me on it in the jungle but I’ve been seeing it for ages and holy shit, Fiona, I’ve been trying so hard not to freak you out but I’ve got so many feelings.”

“I,” Fiona began, just as breathless, “thought you were into Sasha and figured that pissed me off because she was my sister but then you told me it was someone else and--”

“Just now?” Rhys interrupted, stunned. “Damn, I really need to up my game.”

“Your game is fine, shut up,” Fiona breathed and went up on her toes to kiss him again. Rhys groaned softly and sank into the kiss, slipping one hand up her back and into her hair, fingers knocking against the back brim of her hat.

They stood there, locked together, for minutes – hours – days, Rhys didn’t know and didn’t care. All that mattered was the soft, insistent slide of their lips together, of Fiona’s body pressed up close to him, of the swell of affection in the beat of his heart.

For the first time in a long time, it felt like something had clicked home.

They paused to catch their breath, and Rhys let his head tip forward, pressing his lips to Fiona’s hairline.

“We should probably go open that treasure chest,” she mumbled into his shirt and Rhys hummed.

“Nah. Wanna stay right here.”

Fiona snorted, pulling away and slugging him gently in the shoulder. “We almost got killed like, ten different times for this and you don’t even want to open it?”

“This is the part where I say something sweet about you being the only treasure I need, right?”

Fiona looked at him like she wasn’t sure if she was charmed or annoyed. “Or, now hear me out, we could open the treasure and take the money?”

“You don’t even know it’s gonna be money,” Rhys pointed out, following her up the steps. “What if it’s, you know, a monster shaped like a treasure chest?”

Fiona shrugged. “Then at least I kissed you before we got eaten.”

Rhys stopped dead two steps below her, mouth falling open. Fiona paused, glancing over her shoulder, a tiny smile curling up the corner of her mouth. “Oh my god,” Rhys said faintly. “You are the biggest sap in the entire world.”

Fiona went faintly pink. “Shut up.”

She turned back up the steps and Rhys followed, leaping up the last step to catch up with her. “Oh, no no no,” he said, catching her hand. “I’m going to talk about this constantly. I will _never_ shut up about it.”

“I’m regretting this already,” Fiona said, but there was no heat in her words and when Rhys cast a concerned look down at her, she was grinning up at him.

He smiled back, dipping down and planting a wet kiss on her forehead. She made a noise of disgust, reaching up to rub at her face, and he snickered.

“Well?” Rhys asked, squeezing her hand tightly. “Ready to see what all the fuss was about?”

Fiona grinned. “Born ready. Together?”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” he replied. They reached out and gripped the treasure chest lid, reaching through the bright pink-purple light.

“On three?”

“One. Two...”


End file.
